Jack T. Chick, Cartoonist Whose Tracts Preached Salvation, Dies at 92

Jack T. Chick, whose religious cartoons, known as Chick tracts, became known worldwide as tools of religious salvation, but which were also attacked as instruments of hate speech, died on Sunday at his home in Alhambra, Calif. He was 92.

The death was confirmed by David W. Daniels of Mr. Chick’s company, Chick Publications.

“To some, Chick tracts are American folk art or even a form of religious pornography, titillating and somewhat dangerous,” Brill’s Content wrote in 1999. “Chick is the ultimate underground artist.”

Chick Publications says that almost 900 million copies of the cartoons have been printed and sold in 102 languages to missionaries, churches, youth groups and others.

The pocket-size tracts blend typical comic-book illustrations with a chatty, contemporary tone. “Who Cares?” begins with a picture of a plane approaching the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. In subsequent frames a character named Omar and his mother worry about anti-Muslim sentiment after the terrorist attacks.

“May Allah protect you, son,” the mother says as he leaves for work.

Omar answers, “If he doesn’t, I’m toast.”

When Omar is attacked by angry Americans, only one man, a good Christian, comes to his aid — and afterward converts him.

The best-selling Chick tract, “This Was Your Life!,” shows a dead man flown by an angel to Judgment Day, where he is reminded that he told off-color stories, lusted after women and thought about ballgames during church. He is promptly thrown into a lake of fire.

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The cartoonist Jack T. Chick.CreditDavid Daniels, All Rights Reserved

Mr. Chick saw a long list of practices and beliefs as enemies of true Christianity. In addition to Islam, they included abortion, drugs, evolution, homosexuality, rock music, the Roman Catholic Church, Judaism, Mormonism and Freemasonry — but also Dungeons & Dragons, Harry Potter, Halloween and updated translations of the Bible. He and the Christian Booksellers Association parted ways in 1981, partly because of his work’s anti-Catholic messages.

Jack Thomas Chick was born on April 13, 1924, in Los Angeles and grew up in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, the son of Thomas Chick, a commercial artist, and the former Pauline Freas.

He won a two-year scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse to study acting, but his education was interrupted by World War II. He spent three years in the Army, serving in the Pacific Theater — New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines and Japan. When he returned to the Pasadena Playhouse after the war, he met Lynn Priddle, a fellow student from Canada. They were married in 1948.

According to his company biography, Mr. Chick became a Christian during his honeymoon. His new mother-in-law insisted that he listen to a radio program, “Charles E. Fuller’s Old-Fashioned Revival Hour.” He recalled, “When Fuller said the words ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow,’ I fell on my knees.”

While Mr. Chick was working as a technical illustrator for the Astro Science Corporation, he began what in another century would have been called pamphleteering. Unable to find a publisher for “Why No Revival?” — a protest against hypocrisy and spiritual deadness in churches — he borrowed $800 from the company credit union to publish it himself.

The visual inspiration came later, from Bob Hammond, a missionary broadcaster who told Mr. Chick about the Communist Party’s success in China with propaganda in the form of cartoon booklets. Mr. Chick soon tried the idea, preparing a flip chart of cartoon art for a presentation to prison inmates. That artwork later became “This Was Your Life!”

Mr. Chick is survived by his second wife, Susy. Lynn Chick died in 1998, and their daughter, Carol, died in 2001.

Some people called Mr. Chick the Thomas Pynchon of evangelism. He had not given an interview since 1975 and, it was said, had chosen comics as his medium because he was too shy to bear witness any other way.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: Jack T. Chick, 92, Cartoonist Whose Tracts Preached Salvation. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe